


Lucky

by ZedElla (Leviarty)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First Time, Innuendo, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5966470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviarty/pseuds/ZedElla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You and him. It doesn’t work, it never does.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky

“It doesn’t work out, you know,” the other McKay said.

“What?” Rodney asked, too distracted to know what he was talking about.

Quantum!McKay nodded in the direction of Sheppard, who was fiddling with some piece of Ancient technology in the corner. “You and him. It doesn’t work, it never does.”

Rodney pretended not to know what he was talking about.

 

 

The other McKay looked older – not that he was from a future timeline, just that he was more hunched, tired around the eyes. Physically, he was no older than the Rodney McKay of this universe, but he had seen and done so much more, witnessed things that didn’t sit quite right. It was clear, from the wrinkle in his brow, to the way he carried himself down the halls of Atlantis. He was mentally exhausted in a way this McKay never had been.

His arrival in this Atlantis was purely chance – the was no device spitting exotic particles into an alternate universe that needed to be saved from their hazardous experiment, nor was there an alternate Daedalus shifting through universes thanks to a well-intended experiment gone horribly wrong.

No, there was just a small device strapped to the other McKay’s wrist, counting down the minutes until he jumped to the next universe, clueless to which might be waiting for him. Just over 11,000 minutes to the next jump – a little more than a week.

 

 

They try, together, to fix the device that had him stuck on this path.

“Try all you want,” the other McKay said. “You’re not the first, you won’t be the last. You’re no smarter than the thousand or so other McKays to try to solve this.”

Rodney huffed. He’d outsmarted one or two versions of himself before. He could do it again.

 

 

Radek had taken to calling him Quantum!McKay, while Sheppard had, somewhat jokingly, started calling him ‘Rod’.

“I’m sure that’s terribly amusing,” Quantum!McKay said when Ronon and Teyla chuckled at the nickname. Neither McKay found it particularly funny.

 

 

“I’m sure you’ve seen and done numerous interesting things,” Radek said. “Perhaps you have stories to tell?”

This McKay wasn’t particularly inclined to storytelling, despite everyone’s fascination with him and the device that had him sliding across universes (after verifying his identity and plausibility of his story), but did agree to tell them a little, little differences he’d noticed across the multiverse, as well as peculiar things that always remained the same.

There were universes where they were all female versions of themselves, ones where Ford had survived, or Ronon had never joined the team. Sometimes Elizabeth was still alive and in charge, sometimes Carter had retained command, and every once in a while, Sheppard was in charge. In one or two universes, the Ancients still occupied the city, and there were those where the Replicators had taken over.

And then there were places where they have never come to Atlantis, she still slept at the bottom of the ocean, or, worse still, they had all died down there together.

“One thing that always stays the same,” Quantum!McKay said, when all the others had gone off to bed. “It never ends well for the two of you.”

Rodney ignored him.

 

 

Rodney tried to ignore him, anyway, but failed in that because the other McKay was unrelenting, like a dog with a bone, and he could see the way Rodney looked at Sheppard.

“I’ve seen it hundreds of times,” Quantum!McKay said. “You and him, you’re like a fact of the multiverse. A fixed point. In every ‘verse you’re together in some fashion.”

Rodney made some noncommittal noise.

“But it always ends badly. I’m not telling this to upset you. I’m telling you to get out while you still can. It always ends the same. One of you dies, and the other is left behind, broken. Doesn’t matter which one. The lucky one are the ones where _both_ die.”

Rodney didn’t have the words to respond to that. He knew there were many times, too many to count, where he or John had nearly died to save one another or the city. It wasn’t hard to imagine that eventually their luck would run out.

“And in the ‘verse where you both, miraculously, survive? You’re both miserable, have grown to hate each other in ways you can’t even imagine.”

And maybe he was right about that, because, while Rodney is sometimes baffled and irritated by the existence of John Sheppard, he really can’t imagine hating him even a little.

 

 

“You’re wrong about us, you know,” Rodney said eventually.

Quantum!McKay laughed in dark, mirthless way. “After everything I’ve seen, I assure you, I’m not wrong.”

“We’re not together,” Rodney said. “Not in any fashion. We’re friends, that’s all.”

Quantum!McKay raised his brow in something that resembled surprise. “Then you are an outlier among few. Consider yourself lucky.”

 

 

Rodney didn’t consider himself lucky at all – not in this, anyway. In other things, he was plenty lucky. He was in the lost city of Atlantis. There were dozens, if not hundreds of things that should’ve killed him, but he had miraculously survived. He’d spent most of his life as a social pariah, and despite that and his difficult personality (he was not an idiot, he knew he was hard to get along with), he had friends, good friends who would do anything for him.

If he thought about it, he might have been the luckiest man in two galaxies.

But the most he can say about John Sheppard is that they were best friends. Most days, that was enough, more than he could ask for, but it was hard to count himself as lucky for being one Rodney McKay in a thousand to not have the guy he was in love with.

 

 

“What did he say to you?” Sheppard asked, sitting down across from him in the commissary.

“Hmm?” Rodney asked. He didn’t bother to look up from his tablet.

“It’s been twelve hours since _Rod_ left, and you’re still grumpy. Well, extra grumpy. So what did he say that’s got you in a mood?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

“Obviously it does, or it wouldn’t be bothering you.”

“There are no doubt numerous inconsequential things that occupy my mind at any given time, this conversation being one of them,” he snapped, effectively halting any further questions.

 

 

Not that Sheppard wasn’t persistent.

“Come on, Rodney, what’s eating at you?” he asked over lunch. It was late in the afternoon, but the commissary was still fairly crowded.

And Rodney, despite his brain telling him to just let it go, told John everything Quantum!McKay had told him (well, almost everything).

“So, what, it bothers you that in some alternate universe somewhere, you might be a little gay? I never figured you for a bigot.”

Rodney blanched. That was not at all what he meant. And besides, between the two of them, if one was a bigot, surely it was the American military man, not the Canadian. “That’s not what I’m saying.” What exactly was he saying though? “Does it not bother you?”

“What, that John Sheppard is sexually flexible in some universe out there? That’s not a dramatic difference from this universe, Rodney.”

Rodney was glad he was already sitting down, because he was pretty sure that particular revelation would’ve knocked him on his ass. “What?”

And Sheppard, damn him, actually had the audacity to laugh.

“How come you never said anything?” Rodney asked when he found his voice.

John shrugged. “Not something we’re supposed to talk about in the military. Even with the repeal of DADT, it still a touchy subject, and I didn’t feel the need to announce to everyone that, oh, by the way, I like dick. I always figured I was really bad at hiding it anyway.”

“Well, I certainly never realized.” There were countless times Rodney could cite, where Sheppard had been intimate in alien women… but as he ran through a few in his mind, that he may have been a little jaded, and where he saw John getting too cozy with women, it may have actually been women flinging themselves at him, with little reciprocation. Maybe.

“So what’s the big deal? In some alternate universe, we’re a couple-”

“Not just one,” Rodney corrected. “All of them. Apparently. At least, the vast majority of the ones Quantum!McKay has visited. And that’s not the problem, not even slightly.”

“Then what?”

“He said they were all doomed, and that we’re lucky we don’t have each other, like that. Because maybe we’ll survive. But I don’t feel very lucky, because all those other Rodney’s… at least they had some kind of happiness, however short-lived.”

John smiled. “Better to have loved you and lost you, than never have loved you at all?”

“Exactly!” Rodney said, then his eyes widened when he realized what had been said. “I mean…”

“All you had to do was ask, Rodney.”

“Oh?”

John nodded.

“Oh.” Rodney, if he was interpreting John’s words in any way correctly, had no idea what to say. “So you’ve just been waiting… for me to figure it out?”

“I knew you’d get there eventually. You have to solve things for yourself though; otherwise it’s not quite as satisfying.”

“Sadly, you’re probably right about that. You’re still the worst.”

John smirked as he ate the last of his fries. “I’m late for a meeting with Lorne. Are you busy this evening?”

Rodney furrowed his brow in confusion. “Some of the underlings found something _interesting_ near the south pier, which likely means they’ve found some broken technology with limited practicality, so I was going to investigate for myself - ”

“Rodney,” John said, smiling at him in the way that Rodney always thought seemed a little frustrated, but now looked more like _fond_.

“Oh,” he said again. “Really?”

“Yes, Rodney,” John said, rising from his chair. “Think you can reschedule?”

“Well, I suppose Radek can check out whatever it is,” Rodney said.

“I thought so.” John walked away, leaving Rodney staring down at his empty plate, unsure if he’d imagined everything that had just transpired.

 

 

Rodney was hunched over a magnifying glass, so focused on the device in front of him that he didn’t even hear when the door to his lab opened, until John was sitting across from him, peering over at the tiny device with squinted eyes.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

“Teldy found this off world yesterday. At first they thought it was just decorative, but it started giving off strange energy readings a few hours ago.”

“Strange bad?” John asked, tensing slightly. “Harmful radiation? Gonna blow up or otherwise kill people?”

“No, probably not. Just strange. What are you doing?”

“Well, I thought we had plans.”

“Oh, right,” Rodney said, setting down his tools. Damn. “I’m sure this is exactly why things never work.”

“Oh?” John asked, moving around the table towards him. “Why is that?”

“I’m married to my work. I forget simple things – appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, you name it.”

“I know.” Rodney had to be reminded of every staff meeting or mission; unless the results directly affected his work.

“And I’m sure that can be extremely frustrating.”

John shrugged. “Not really. We have a routine.”

“Yes, I miss dates, and you find me in the lab, playing with confounding objects. I mean, not that we had a date… did we?”

“We can call it a date,” John said, kissing Rodney lightly. “And it’s okay, really.”

“No it’s not.”

John kissed him again. “How about a compromise? You keep doing all the things you’re good at, and I’ll remind you of the other important stuff.”

“That sounds like an unfair bargain. What do you get out of it?”

He kissed him again and grinned. “Oh, trust me, I’ll get plenty.”

 

 

“What if he was right, though?” Rodney asked a while later, as they laid shoulder-to-shoulder in John’s bed. “What if we are doomed?”

“We’re rarely more than a few steps apart when shit hits the fan,” John said. “If something happens to one of us-”

“Then we’ll go out together in a blaze of glory? That’s very sentimental.”

“No better way to die,” John said.

“I prefer not dying.” But the thing that Quantum!McKay didn't seem to realize was that this was part of the package. One of them might die - it was inevitable. And though Rodney would be devastated if he was the one left standing at the end, he wouldn't die of heartbreak.

**Author's Note:**

> Quantum!McKay is loosely based on the show Sliders. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't seen it: basically there is a device that shifts them to a new universe at random intervals. They have no control over where they go, or when the next slide occurs. Every universe is a little different - sometimes the difference is huge and obvious, other times it's subtle things.
> 
> Whether the device in this fic was created by the Ancients, or by Quantum!Rodney is up to your preference, just know that he has been traveling for many years, and has seen many versions of Atlantis.


End file.
